Great Basin Naturalist Volume 42 Number 2 Article 1 6-30-1982 Utah plant types—historical perspective 1840 to 1981—annotated list, and bibliography Stanley L. Welsh Brigham Young University Follow this and additional works at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/gbn Recommended Citation Welsh, Stanley L. (1982) "Utah plant types—historical perspective 1840 to 1981—annotated list, and bibliography," Great Basin Naturalist: Vol. 42 : No. 2 , Article 1. Available at: https://scholarsarchive.byu.edu/gbn/vol42/iss2/1 This Article is brought to you for free and open access by the Western North American Naturalist Publications at BYU ScholarsArchive. It has been accepted for inclusion in Great Basin Naturalist by an authorized editor of BYU ScholarsArchive. For more information, please contact [email protected], [email protected]. MU! H'^T The Great Basiii Naturalist Published at Provo, Utah, by Brigham Young University ISSN 0017-3614 Volume 42 June 30, 1982 No. 2 UTAH PLANT TYPES-HISTORICAL PERSPECTIVE 1840 TO 1981- ANNOTATED LIST, AND BIBLIOGRAPHY St;uiley L. Welsh' .\bstract.— Reviewed are the 144 collectors and 167 authors of 1073 Utali vascular plant types for the period from 1840 to 1981. Historical perspective yields evidence of geography of collection activities by botanists who pene- trated the boundaries of the state, and of shifting centers of emphasis in the study of Utah plants from a classical tax- onomic standpoint. Philosophy and influence of contemporary authors and collectors is discussed as they affect tax- onomv of Utah plants in our first 142 years. A short biographical account of Marcus Eugene Jones and his interaction with other American botanists is included. The annotated checklist includes bibliographical citations, type locality data, collector, and place of deposition. Acknowledgments Kaye Thorne, my colleague at the herba- It is impossible to complete a work as rium of Brigham Young University, gave en- complex and tedious as this without the help couragement and help at all times. Mark L. of otiiers. I thank the curators of the herbaria Gabel aided me with research on the life of hospitality will- visited by me for their and Charles Christopher Parry. To him I am ingness to help in this work. They are as fol- grateful. lows: Elizabeth McClintock and John To Mr. Charles Walker, archivist for the Thomas Howell (CAS); Robert Thorne (RSA); family of Publius Virgilius and Lavinia (Bur- Ronald Hartman (RM); Patricia K. Holmgren ton) I am grateful for the access he and Rupert C. Bameby (NY); George Russell Jones, to a published family history in- (US); Lois Amow and Beverly Albee (UT); provided me cluding accounts of Marcus E. Jones and his Mary Barkworth (UTC); Theodore J. Cro- vello (NDG); and Richard Pohl and Duane wife, Anna Elizabeth Richardson. Also, he Isely (ISC). I am indebted to George Knaphus provided me original letters written by both and Lois Tiffany who made it possible for me of them, and by a nephew of Jones, Arthur J. to visit the site of Jones Grove, where Marcus Jones, who accompanied him on attenuated E. Jones lived with his family near Grinnell, field trips by wagon. These have given me in- Iowa. Acknowledged also is the help of Mrs. sight into Jones's family life and have allowed Ralph Fleener, who resides currently on the me to present a portion of the life-style of his former Jones's property, for the checking of wife and family during his intensely goal- records and dates on markers in the cemetery oriented life. I shall be forever indebted to at Grinnell. Mr. Walker and his family for this insight. 'Life Science Museum and Department of Botany and Range Science, Brigham Young University, Provo, Utah 84602. 129 130 Great Basin Naturalist Vol. 42, No. 2 Introduction I have tried to avoid inclusion of obvious paratypes. These are specimens cited with All taxonomists, and others who work with the original description, but they are not du- plant names, have been hampered by lack of plicates of the holotype. Mostly paratypes a summary treatment of Utah plant types, do, indeed, represent the same taxon as the their collectors, authors, and places of deposi- holotype or lectotype. They are the next tion. The specimens serve to typify the most important elements in typification; but names applied to them by the authors who sometimes they represent extraneous mate- named and described them. The types are the rials, and might belong to quite different name-bearing specimens and are in- taxa. The main reason for not citing them dispensible in interpretation of taxonomic here involves the endless listing of specimens. hmits and concepts; they are necessary for They are very numerous, and will be most nomenclatural considerations. important to those undertaking revisions and There are several kinds of types, but only monographs. holotypes and their duplicates, the isotypes, Information has been gathered from exam- have been included uniformly in the follow- ination of type collections at the U.S. Nation- ing treatment. I have not tried to distinguish al (US, 500 Rocky Mountain holotypes from isotypes in the designations of Museum + ); Herbarium (RM, 150 + ); California Academy place of deposition; that is a taxonomic con- of Science (CAS, 120+ York Botanical sideration which is left to the monographer. ); New In many instances the name bearing speci- Garden (NY, 550 + ); Rancho Santa Ana mens were not designated as types by the au- (POM, 240 + ); Iowa State University (ISC, ca thors and I have followed tradition in citing 100); University of Utah (UT, 100+ ); Utah the original materials as types. Many of the State University (UTC, 150 + ) and Brigham older names have been subjected to lecto- Young University (BRY, 250 + ). Only se- typification. Where this has been obvious, lected material has been examined from Gray mainly in taxonomic revisions or as indicated Herbarium (GH), Carnegie Museum (CM), on some herbarium annotations, I have fol- University of California, Berkeley (UC), lowed that usage. Lectotypification, how- Notre Dame University (NDG), and Missouri ever, is subject to interpretation, and the Botanical Garden (MO). Information on types specimens cited might ultimately be excluded at the Greene Herbarium at Notre Dame from consideration as lectotype or isolecto- University was taken from a computer print- type. Too, some materials have been cited as out provided through the generosity of Pro- cotypes or syntypes. fessor Crovello. Literature has When a portion of the Theodore J. original collection cited is from Utah, I have been reviewed for most of the citations, but included that material as a type. It might some have been unavailable. Other citations have been designated at a lower level, i.e., as still await procedures entailed through inter- paratype, by some author or authors un- library loans. known to me. Type locality information has been abbre- Designation of types is a function of rules viated in some instances to conform to the established mainly in the 20th-century, and computer format. Localities of deposition, or early authors were not impressed with the supposed deposition, are indicated by the necessity of typification. Mention of speci- standard abbreviations. Where I have seen mens to vouch for newly described taxa was the type, the abbreviation is followed by an often only incidental. Most of the types serv- exclamation mark (e.g., US!). Where the ab- ing as bases for taxa described in the 19th- breviation stands alone, the place of deposi- century are now interpreted through lecto- tion is taken from literature, or from infer- typification. Purists often are involved in ence with other collections or names polemical stRiggles over selection of the cor- published by the same author, but the speci- rect portion of the specimens cited (or not men has not been seen by me. cited) as the lectotype. I have not searched Although portions of more than two dec- all the literature in which lectotypes have ades have passed since this work was begun, been designated; that is the role of the the data are still incomplete for many of the monographer. plant names. I apologize for that lack of June 1982 Welsh: Utah Plant Types 131 completeness, and for the many errors that and others have undergone name changes. will become apparent as one uses the list. Present knowledge of distribution allows for Some of the problems are apparently in- accurate placement, at least to county level, soluble. Plant collectors and authors seldom of some materials which were provided with have been instilled with sufficient foresight vague or misleading locality information. to supply all the information necessary for Problems associated with collections of adequate intrepretation of specimens, local- certain individuals will be discussed in the ities, dates, and other data. Brevity was con- historical review presented below. sidered to be a virtue by the collectors (along It is believed that the shortfalls in data do widi an almost impossible, if unstated, belief not obscure the basic picture of plant explor- that others would know what they knew), ation in Utah or of the story of publication of types. This attempt at even when that brevity left out such informa- taxa based on Utah analysis of type data in no way detracts from tion as state, locality within the state (or ter- the larger scene of plant studies which re- ritory), political subdivision of the state, and sulted from the naming of plants based on any other data. Herbarium labels are the types from other areas. The flora of Utah is sources of infonnation provided by plant col- replete with names of plants with circum- lectors, and they should have contained cer- boreal and other extra Utah representation tain basic data. Some of the deficiency, such dating to 18th- and early 19th-century collec- as lack of place names and surveys, is not the tors and authors.